Coroner tells DWP to act on universal credit safety after claimant’s suicide
A coroner has warned work and pensions secretary Mel Stride he needs to act to prevent flaws in the universal credit system leading to further deaths, following the suicide of a disabled man who became overwhelmed by the application process.
It is believed to be the first time a coroner has sent a prevention of future deaths (PFD) report to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) relating to the flawed universal credit system.
It comes as a “deeply troubling” report that ministers kept hidden for four years reveals shortcomings at the heart of the system and in how DWP supported “vulnerable” claimants of universal credit, including those experiencing mental distress (see separate story).
An inquest into the death of Kevin Gale earlier this month heard from his psychiatrist, who expressed significant concerns about the way mental health service-users were supported with their universal credit claims within DWP.
The inquest also heard from the trust’s nursing director, who told the coroner that they considered the issues identified by the psychiatrist to be “national” and said they were “debilitating for service users”.
The inquest heard that the trust’s crisis team even started its own foodbank for service-users three years ago.
Kevin Gale, who is believed to have worked previously as a window cleaner, took his own life on 4 March 2022.
Disability News Service (DNS) has learned that he resigned days before from an unpaid position as a director with the management company responsible for the block of flats where he lived in Penrith, Cumbria.
The inquest heard that he had a long history of depression and anxiety but had been engaging with mental health services, and that he had been “well supported by his family and friends”.
His worsening mental health had led to him being detained under the Mental Health Act in November 2021, before he was discharged on 4 January 2022.
A psychiatrist who saw him on 2 May, two days before he took his own life, told the inquest that they believed his anxiety had been exacerbated by his universal credit application.
The psychiatrist had called DWP during the appointment but, the coroner wrote in the PFD report, “the call was not answered before the end of the consultation”.
Gale had been expecting a call from DWP the following day, and he spoke to the duty registered mental health nurse at 11am on 3 May.
The coroner reported: “He remained very anxious and his main concern was the application for Universal Credit.”
He took his own life at home the following day.
Following the concerns raised by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust during the inquest, coroner Kirsty Gomersal sent a PFD report to Stride.
She told him: “The evidence revealed matters giving rise to concern. In my opinion there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken.”
She pointed to the “number of and length” of the universal credit forms that had to be completed which “can be overwhelming for someone with a mental health illness”, and which are “perpetuated if the applicant cannot get help to complete the paperwork”, while also highlighting the “long telephone queues to speak to a DWP advisor”.
She added: “Having to travel long distances for appointments can be detrimental for those with a mental health illness.”
DWP did not give evidence at the inquest, the coroner said, because the concerns about universal credit “did not come to light until the hearing”, which meant she was unable to make a “causal link” between Gale’s death and his anxiety about his universal credit application.
There have been just a handful of PFD reports sent to DWP by coroners since 2010, despite more than 250 secret internal reviews carried out by the department into the deaths of claimants since 2012.
DNS has approached the family of Kevin Gale through their solicitor, but they had not responded by noon today (Thursday).
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust refused to comment on the inquest or repeat any of the concerns raised by its staff.
A trust spokesperson said it “wouldn’t be appropriate for us, as an NHS organisation, to ask staff to give a media interview commenting on government policy”.
A DWP spokesperson said: “Our condolences are with Mr Gale’s family.
“We will review the coroner’s report and respond in due course.”
16 November 2023
Secret report finally reveals flaws in universal credit support for ‘vulnerable’ claimants
A “deeply troubling” government report that ministers kept hidden for four years has revealed significant flaws at the heart of the universal credit system and how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) supports “vulnerable” claimants.
The report, produced in autumn 2019, concludes that the design of universal credit “is inadequate for vulnerable groups” who therefore need extra help from staff through adjustments and specialist support.
It also says the support provided by universal credit is “inconsistently effective” with some claimants “not adequately supported”, while the system for managing individual cases is described as “suboptimal”.
Its release, following a two-year freedom of information battle, comes as Disability News Service (DNS) also reports how a coroner has warned work and pensions secretary Mel Stride that he needs to take action to prevent flaws in the system leading to further deaths, following the suicide of a claimant who became overwhelmed by the universal credit application process (see separate story).
The 2019 report said universal credit’s design was “challenging” for “claimants with vulnerabilities”, such as many disabled people, care leavers and victims of domestic abuse, because it “requires behavioural and lifestyle changes which they are unable to meet”.
The authors of the 24-page report found evidence that not all frontline DWP staff were aware of some “headline policies”, which raised fears that “some claimants are not being paid their full entitlement”.
DWP has been trying to prevent the release of the report by the former Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit (PMIU) since its existence was revealed in October 2021 in universal credit papers secured by campaigner John Slater.
But the information rights tribunal told DWP last month that it must release the How Effective is Support for Vulnerable Universal Credit Claimants? report.
DNS had been seeking a copy of the report since late 2021, alongside Slater and Owen Stevens, from Child Poverty Action Group.
Following the tribunal ruling, DWP has now released the report, and its contents are likely to revive concerns about the impact of universal credit on countless disabled claimants and others in vulnerable situations.
The PMIU report made it clear that the introduction of universal credit (UC) in 2013 – combining six working-age benefits into a single monthly payment through a “digital interface” – had presented “more acute challenges for some vulnerable claimants”.
It concluded: “We know that vulnerabilities can make it harder for claimants to engage with UC across their claimant journey, when making a claim, managing their claim, and managing their finances.”
Slater said that the report’s conclusion that the design of UC was “inadequate for vulnerable groups” was “deeply troubling”.
He told DNS: “The statement that UC by design is challenging for vulnerable claimants is a terrible indictment of the UC team and suggests that vulnerable claimants have been an afterthought.”
He said there was so much in the report “that should have caused the senior leaders of UC and the DWP sleepless nights”.
Although the report said DWP staff can “deliver a more tailored service” for those who need more support with their UC claims and that some of them “go beyond what is expected of them to help”, it also warned that “there is not a consistent understanding of whom this support works for”.
It added: “Knowledge gaps, lack of clarity on expectations, and uncertainty on best practice in handling the most complex cases means some individuals are not adequately supported.”
Slater said: “The fact that [jobcentres] and individual work coaches are doing such good work is fantastic, but it seems to me that they are doing it in spite of the UC and senior DWP leaders rather than because this is the behaviour that has been encouraged and fostered.
“Vulnerable claimants are clearly at the mercy of a postcode lottery in respect of the support they will get from [jobcentres] and individual work coaches.
“This isn’t acceptable.”
The PMIU report also said problems were intensified by delays in accessing mental health treatment, with many jobcentres reporting a “large number of claimants presenting with mental health conditions, for which there is little immediate provision because of long NHS waiting times”.
It added: “Problems with the availability, suitability or timeliness of access to services from third parties reduces the effectiveness of support.”
These issues are almost certain to have worsened since 2019.
The report – written before the pandemic, and the subsequent worldwide economic downturn – also warned that frontline staff were “working close to capacity”, and that jobcentres “may not be resourced to deliver the enhanced support currently available as the caseload increases or in the event of an economic downturn”.
Only this month, DNS reported how conditions at one jobcentre became so stressful from late 2021 onwards that 15 of those in one team of 23 work coaches quit within a 12-month period, with at least eight of them experiencing a significant collapse in their mental health due to a huge, sudden increase in workload.
Even before that increase in workload from late 2021, the PMIU report warned that work coaches only have “up to 15 minutes for meetings with existing claimants”, which was “unlikely to be sufficient for claimants with complex needs who are furthest from the labour market and need the most support”.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee heard yesterday (Wednesday) how one of the architects of universal credit admitted to a benefits expert that he and his colleagues were not thinking about “health problems and caring responsibilities at all” when they created universal credit and that they “sort of assumed that this was going to be an operational problem that other people could deal with down the line”.
In an email accompanying the release of the PMIU report to DNS, DWP claimed that UC had “transformed significantly in the support it provides all individuals, especially those who are vulnerable” since 2019, and that it had “made a large number of changes to improve how vulnerable individuals are supported”.
These included creating a new “customer experience directorate”, “re-mobilising” its complex needs team, introducing a new UC team for “understanding, and resolving barriers identified for claimants in accessing the service”, and introducing 38 advanced customer support senior leaders to “underpin our relationships with other organisations who provide support for our customers”.
DWP added: “In line with our well-established design principles, we continue to test and iterate how best to support claimants who are in scope to move to UC.
“It should also be noted that this report was never a statement of government policy, rather it reflected the observations of individuals in the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit at the time.”
16 November 2023
Tomlinson’s ‘tokenistic’ engagement in early months of pandemic ‘was scandalous’
The attitude of the former disability minister to engagement with disabled people during the early months of the pandemic has been described as “scandalous” and “tokenistic”, days after he gave evidence about it to the Covid inquiry.
Justin Tomlinson, who was minister for disabled people from the start of the pandemic until September 2021, told the inquiry last week that it would be “hard pressed to find a minister who probably did more stakeholder meetings”.
He also told the inquiry (PDF): “I’ve always enjoyed stakeholder engagement; I’ve found it makes for better policy development, it provides you with insight that even the most academic policymakers, unless they’ve got that lived experience, would not necessarily appreciate.”
And he said engagement was something he “passionately wanted to see not just for myself as a minister, but to be embedded as a given across government”.
But figures from his own former department show that Tomlinson took part in an average of fewer than five meetings a month with “stakeholders” in the first six months of the pandemic, at a time when tens of thousands of disabled people were dying from Covid.
He told the inquiry there had been “an absolute understanding across government that those with underlying health conditions and disabilities were the most likely to be impacted by Covid”.
But Department for Work and Pensions figures show that Tomlinson only carried out 27 meetings (either face-to-face or online) with external organisations from the beginning of March until the end of August 2020.
Of those meetings, just 18 – across six months – were with disability organisations, and only eight involved a disabled people’s organisation (DPO).
Throughout August 2020, he carried out no external meetings at all.
The DWP records also suggest that only about 15 of his meetings with stakeholders in the first six months of the pandemic were focused on Covid, and only about six of those meetings involved a DPO.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “Tomlinson’s comments at the Covid inquiry about the frequency and importance he put on stakeholder engagement in the pandemic bears no resemblance to our experience as a DPO.
“We had no contact with him for the first three months of the pandemic and when we did manage to engage him it was about specific issues relating to Access to Work in the summer of 2020.
“The only engagement with Tomlinson after that were the three DPO forum meetings starting on 22 July 2020 and unilaterally ended by Tomlinson on 12 Nov 2020.
“The three forum meetings were characterized by a lack of any strategic approach, including a failure to provide any written information, briefings or presentations that left us as forum participants unable to have any meaningful input on either pandemic issues or the National Disability Strategy.
“Such a casual, tokenistic and dismissive approach to engagement with DPOs is not acceptable at any time but it’s simply scandalous at the very time that thousands of disabled people were dying as a direct result of our needs being overlooked or ignored.”
Nuala Toman, head of innovation and impact for Disability Action Northern Ireland, one of the four national DPOs that have been given core participant status in the current Covid inquiry module, said: “Publicly available meeting records show that the former minster for disabled people did not effectively engage with disabled people at a time when disabled people were dying as a result of the pandemic.
“There is little evidence to even suggest that the former minister made any significant or credible attempt to involve disabled people in decisions at a time when deaths of disabled people were soaring.
“Instead, public records indicate a very limited and cosmetic approach to engaging with disabled people, which was more about looks than actual action.”
She added: “It is absolutely essential that lessons are learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This will not be achieved unless ministers and those making decisions are open and honest about the extent to which disabled people were locked out from decision-making, and the extent of avoidable harm which disabled people experienced at this time, including loss of life.
“Now is the time for honesty, not fudge.”
Tomlinson did not respond to questions emailed to his parliamentary office this week about his record on engagement during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the disabled Conservative MP Paul Maynard – who has previously held posts in the Department for Transport and Ministry of Justice – has been appointed as a junior DWP minister in this week’s government reshuffle.
He appears to have been given responsibility for pensions policy, although that has not yet been confirmed.
Tom Pursglove remains the minister for disabled people.
16 November 2023
EHRC struggles to justify key omissions from equality and rights report
The human rights watchdog has struggled to explain why its major report on Britain’s “equality and human rights landscape” has ignored key breaches of disabled people’s rights by the UK government.
The Equality and Human Rights Monitor report*, published today (Thursday), is supposed to assess the status of equality and human rights across Britain since 2018.
But analysis of the report by Disability News Service (DNS) has again raised questions about the commission’s ability and willingness to hold the government to account over its repeated breaches of disabled people’s rights.
Among the concerns about the report is its failure to mention two legal interventions it has made in the last two years, both of which were supposedly aimed at forcing the government to act over major breaches of disability rights.
DNS has highlighted the report’s failure across at least five key areas – housing, disability benefits, social care, inappropriate detention in mental health settings, and education – although there are likely to be more.
Although there is a small section on the inappropriate detention of people with learning difficulties and autistic people in inpatient mental health settings, there is no mention of the legal warning EHRC issued the government last year about its lack of progress in this area (see separate story).
On disability benefits, the report makes a couple of low-key references to concerns, mentioning the work capability assessment (WCA) and, in reference to statistics showing the worsening mental health of disabled people, stating: “Some of these trends may be linked to changes in benefits paid to disabled people.
“Analysis has found changes to the work capability assessment corresponded with increased mental health problems.”
This refers to research published in 2016, without explaining that it actually linked the WCA with 600 suicides between 2010 and 2013.
There is also no mention in the EHRC report of a series of deaths linked to the actions and failings of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) since 2018, including those of Philippa Day, Errol Graham, Roy Curtis, James Oliver, Philip Pakree, Ker Featherstone, Sophia Yuferev, Stephen Smith and Christian Wilcox.
And there is no mention of EHRC’s own attempts since April 2022 to persuade DWP to sign a section 23 legal agreement that would force the department to improve its treatment of disabled benefit claimants.
On education, the EHRC report appears to welcome funding that allowed the opening of a string of new special schools, with provision for up to 3,000 disabled pupils, without pointing out that the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities has criticised the UK government for the “persistence of a dual education system” that segregates increasing numbers of disabled children in special schools.
The report also fails to point out that article 24 of the UN disability convention requires the development of a fully inclusive education system.
On social care, there is a brief, uncritical paragraph that fails to mention the social care crisis other than saying that the sector “has long been under pressure”.
The report fails to mention that tens of thousands of disabled people face debt collection action every year over unpaid care charges.
And it also fails to mention that, two years ago, the commission itself warned the government that social care was at “crisis point” and called on ministers to introduce a legal right to independent living.
In the housing section, the EHRC report appears to praise the UK government for its commitment in July 2022 to “raising mandatory accessibility standards for all new homes in England”, while failing to point out that the promised consultation on the changes has still not been launched 16 months on.
The government originally suggested these changes nearly three years ago.
In its press release, the commission focuses on the impact of home working on disabled people, rates of domestic abuse, access to justice and workplace discrimination.
It also mentions the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people, which it claims has narrowed, despite analysis by researchers suggesting such figures are essentially “meaningless” because disability equality for disabled people has remained almost static when it comes to finding and keeping jobs.
Baroness Falkner, the commission’s chair, said in the press release: “Our Equality and Human Rights Monitor represents the most extensive review of Britain’s progress towards greater equality and respect for human rights.
“By addressing disparities that affect specific groups, we can collectively improve services and work towards a fairer society.”
Of seven recommendations made by the report in its disability section, three relate to disability employment, one to disability poverty, one to the increase in disabled people’s mental ill-health, another aims to address the risk of experiencing crime, and one calls for action on the impact of digital exclusion.
Asked how it justified producing a report that omitted so many key concerns about disabled people’s rights, and ignored recent deaths of disabled people linked to DWP’s actions, an EHRC spokesperson said: “The Equality and Human Rights Monitor offers a comprehensive overview of the equality and human rights landscape in Britain over the last five years.
“The report is data led, offering a bespoke analysis of a range of data from different surveys and sources, including a widely advertised call for evidence and extensive consultation with disability-led organisations.
“Additionally, as the report includes a broad range of evidence and issues, across all protected characteristics, not all issues can be examined in full depth, and we have not included a comprehensive account of all our enforcement actions taken.
“Our methodology is detailed on our website.
“Our independence is guaranteed in statute, and we reject any claim that our report has been weakened to protect the government or any other body.
“It is not the role of the EHRC to make policy recommendations on behalf of government, public bodies or others.
“The purpose of the report is to provide these groups with the data and tools they need to improve public services to benefit all.”
*Separate reports focus on Scotland and Wales
16 November 2023
Human rights watchdog fails to follow through on legal threat to government
The human rights watchdog has failed to follow through on threats to take legal action against the government over its efforts to cut the number of disabled people inappropriately detained in secure hospitals in England.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has not taken any legal action against the government despite the number of people with learning difficulties and autistic people in inpatient mental health settings falling by only a small amount since it issued the threat more than 15 months ago.
EHRC said in July 2022 that it was “exploring how best to use its legal powers to help patients and their families” and that this could include “action in the courts”.
It pointed out at the time that it was “unacceptable” that hundreds of autistic people and people with learning difficulties were “still being kept as in-patients when they could be receiving community care”, more than a decade after government action was first promised.
But last month’s figures show almost no progress has been made by the government in the last 15 months.
The government’s target is to cut the number of people with learning difficulties and autistic people in specialist inpatient care by 50 per cent by March 2024 compared with March 2015, when there were 2,900.
But NHS figures show there were 2,240 autistic people and people with learning difficulties in specialist mental health inpatient settings in March 2022, and that that had fallen by less than 200 to 2,045 by the end of September 2023.
This also means that the number has fallen by only 230 (from 2,275) since March 2020 – more than three-and-a-half years ago.
Asked why EHRC had done nothing to follow through on its legal threat, despite the new figures, the commission said it was “continuing to monitor progress” on the “complex issue”.
Its failure to act echoes its refusal to follow through on a threat to take legal action against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over the discrimination faced by disabled benefit claimants.
The commission said in May 2022 that it expected DWP to sign a section 23 legal agreement – under the Equality Act 2006 – by the summer of 2022, which would commit the department to addressing this discrimination.
That agreement has still not been signed, 18 months on.
Asked why it was not using its legal powers to act on the government’s lack of progress in reducing the number of disabled people inappropriately detained in secure hospitals, an EHRC spokesperson said: “We are continuing to monitor progress of this complex issue, including considering Baroness Hollins’ final report into people placed in long-term segregation and any new data.
“We are examining how well integrated care boards evidence their compliance with the public sector equality duty on a number of health inequalities, including the inappropriate detention of learning disabled and autistic people.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We remain committed to achieving our ambition set out in the NHS Long Term Plan to reduce by half the number of autistic people and people with a learning disability in mental health hospitals, by March 2024, through investment in community support.
“This year, we are investing an additional £121 million to improve community support, including funding for children and young people’s keyworkers.
“The number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in specialist mental health inpatient settings at the end of September 2023 was 2,045 – a 30 per cent net reduction since March 2015.”
16 November 2023
Known harm caused by benefits system ‘just the tip of the iceberg’, MPs hear
What is known publicly about the harm caused by the benefits system – including deaths by suicide linked to the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – is just “the tip of the iceberg”, MPs have been told.
Experts were giving evidence yesterday (Wednesday) to the Commons work and pensions committee in the first session of its inquiry into safeguarding “vulnerable” benefit claimants.
Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, who has led parliamentary efforts to highlight deaths caused by DWP’s safeguarding failures, had asked whether the number of suicides examined by the department through its internal review process was “the tip of the iceberg”.
Chloe Schendel-Wilson, co-founder and director of The Disability Policy Centre, a thinktank linked closely to the Conservative party, agreed with Abrahams.
She said it “feels like we’re still playing catch up” and that there appeared to be “a huge systemic problem where things are just not being picked up”.
Nikki Bond, interim head of research and policy at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute (MMHPI), said it was “absolutely the tip of the iceberg”.
She said that people were self-harming or contemplating suicide every day because they feel “trapped” and “think it’s their only way out”.
She said MMHPI had “reams of evidence” that the disability assessment and sanctions systems were “a significant source of harm”.
Henry Parkes, principal economist and head of quantitative research at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said “the reason why we don’t know the full size of the iceberg is because our processes to understand how this is failing are flawed at the moment”.
Schendel-Wilson, Bond and Parkes all agreed with Abrahams’ suggestion that there should be an independent organisation to examine deaths linked to DWP’s failures.
Schendel-Wilson said: “If there was any other area of the public sector where these sorts of failings were going on, people would rightly expect a lot more transparency and a lot more accountability, and there would be a lot more public outrage, I think, if this was going on in the health system.”
In a second evidence session yesterday, Professor Ben Baumberg Geiger, professor in social science and health at King’s College London, told the committee how one of the architects of universal credit, Devon Ghelani, had admitted to him that they were not thinking about “health problems and caring responsibilities at all” when they created it.
He said Ghelani told him: “We just weren’t thinking about that. We sort of assumed that this was going to be an operational problem that other people could deal with down the line.”
Baumberg Geiger said this was not a helpful approach and under a benefits system like universal credit that has “really strong requirements” and “makes a lot of assumptions about what people can deal with”, many people will be made “vulnerable”.
Asked by Conservative MP Siobhan Baillie about the “urgency” of the government’s efforts to reform the work capability assessment as a way of reducing the “sheer numbers of people” with mental ill-health on out-of-work benefits, he said there was a need to “stop talking about things as if there’s something cheap that’s going to magically solve the problems”.
He said there were ways to help some people with mental distress into work, by providing significant levels of support, removing sanctions and “not threatening people”, as well as doing much more to provide inclusive, flexible workplaces, and allowing people to work from home, as disabled campaigner Catherine Hale has suggested for people with energy-limiting impairments.
But pressed by Baillie on whether that could be done at scale, he said: “Avoiding magical thinking, I think, is really important in this area because I’ve only been working on these issues for 15 years or so, which is long enough, but I know people have worked on it for longer, and [there has been] so much magical thinking from people saying ‘these people don’t have many barriers to work and we can fix it magically like this’.”
Baumberg Geiger, who has previously spent time on secondment in DWP, said the department’s current consultation on plans to restrict eligibility by tightening the work capability assessment was “very bad”.
He said there was “a lack of evidence base” for its proposal to remove the “substantial risk” clause that currently protects many disabled people at risk of harm if found fit for work or work-related activity.
Abrahams told the committee that she had visited the Museum of Austerity mixed-reality installation* in Manchester earlier this month.
She accompanied Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson is featured in the installation and died due to diabetic ketoacidosis after he had been sanctioned.
The production uses the verbal testimony of family members and state-of-the-art technology to recreate the circumstances that led to some of the countless deaths of disabled claimants in the post-2010 decade of austerity.
Professor Lisa Scullion, professor of social policy at the University of Salford, said her research with veterans within the social security system and her earlier work on the five-year The Impacts of Welfare Conditionality project had shown that “conditionality is ineffective in moving people towards the paid labour market, particularly in relation to people with more complex needs and mental health issues”.
She said: “The research has shown that over many years.
“People feel trapped, dominated, powerless, and particularly where they are being pushed towards precarious, low paid work, or work that isn’t appropriate for them, or courses that aren’t appropriate to supporting them into meaningful work.”
*John Pring, editor of Disability News Service, is co-editor and specialist advisor on Museum of Austerity
16 November 2023
MPs say cost-of-living payments to disabled people should have been higher
A committee of MPs has called for any further cost-of-living payments made by the government to disabled people to be increased in proportion to the extra disability-related costs they face.
The Commons work and pensions committee concluded in its new report that support payments made to help people with cost-of-living pressures over the last 18 months have not been high enough and for many recipients have offered only “a short-term reprieve”.
The report focuses on those considered “most vulnerable”, including many disabled people.
It concludes that the “unsophisticated nature” of the payment system placed “significant limitations” on how the needs of groups such as disabled and older people have been met.
But the committee said it was “particularly concerned” that the extra support offered to disabled people was only £150 per year, and it called for this to be increased in proportion to their extra costs in any future payments.
The report said the committee had yet to receive an “adequate explanation” from the government for how it decided that £150 was a “suitable bridging payment” for disabled people.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said this week that more than eight million households across the UK will receive up to £900 in cost-of-living payments through 2023-24.
As part of its inquiry, the committee carried out a survey which received nearly 2,000 responses, and it also engaged with people with learning difficulties about their experiences of the cost-of-living payments.
One of those adults with learning difficulties told the committee during its engagement process that the rising cost of food and energy meant they had needed to borrow regularly from friends.
They said: “I lay awake at night thinking what to go without to come within budget, but they are essentials so the stress of having to do the impossible was tough.”
Of those who received the disability payment but no other cost-of-living payments, almost all said this provided only “extremely limited” help.
One survey respondent said: “Disabled people were completely forgotten in this scheme and the true cost of their needs was not taken into account. £150 barely touched the sides.
“In my case, my condition means I need to keep my joints warm and I need the heating on more than the average person, I also need to use hot water more frequently.
“I also need to charge equipment I use for my disability.
“This obviously leads to more energy use and higher costs.
“A single payment of £150 did not take these extra needs into account, especially when compared to the amount those on certain benefits received.”
A second respondent said: “Gratefully received but a drop in the ocean of the tidal wave of extra costs.”
Another told the committee: “It didn’t even cover one month’s gas and electricity bill.”
Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said the £150 paid to disabled people “barely touches the sides”.
He said: “While the support payments have made an important impact in helping those most in need during these difficult times, the overall package has offered just a short-term reprieve for many, while others have slipped through the safety net altogether.
“It is vital that the government listens to those with everyday experience of support payments so it learns important lessons should a new package of support be required in the future.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “The cost-of-living payments have provided a significant financial boost to millions of households, and are just one part of the record £94 billion support package we have provided to help with the rising cost of bills.
“This includes a 10.1 per cent rise to benefits earlier this year, and a more than £2 billion Household Support Fund to help with the cost of household essentials.
“In the long term, the best way to secure financial security is through work, and thousands of work coaches in jobcentres across the country are on hand to help people find a job, enhance their skills, and reap the benefits of work.”
16 November 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
The government has delayed several key reforms to social care staffing in England due to political chaos caused by the collapse of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss governments and a Whitehall recruitment freeze, it has emerged. Work to create new training places and develop the low-paid care workforce was supposed to start in September but has been delayed by at least six months. A parallel plan to launch a new career structure for the sector – considered vital to the government’s promise to “fix the crisis in social care” – has also been delayed, the National Audit Office found: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/10/tory-turmoil-hits-efforts-to-fix-staffing-crisis-in-adult-social-care
Nearly a quarter of a million people in England were waiting to have their care needs assessed by the end of summer, according to a report which warns of ongoing “significant budgetary challenges” impacting on the social care sector. Almost a third of directors of adult social care services said they had been asked to make savings collectively totalling £83.7 million for the year to March 2024, research by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/health-england-english-government-nhs-providers-b2448151.html
Thousands of people who need support at home face an increased risk of poor care because of low fees paid by the NHS and councils, care companies say. Only one UK public authority in 20 pays enough to fund the minimum wage and other staff costs, research suggests. This means some companies struggle to find enough staff to support people with complex needs, while others face going under: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67414940
16 November 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
